


Terrible Sting and Terrible Storm

by WitnessToMyOwnHistory (graceling_in_a_suit)



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Canon Compliant, Crushes, Eddie being a human-shaped mess of tenderness and anger, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Insults as a Love Language, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Minor Injuries, Repression, Richie being a human-shaped mess of puberty blues and gay dumbassery, Underage Smoking, supportive friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:40:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21854647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/graceling_in_a_suit/pseuds/WitnessToMyOwnHistory
Summary: When you're Richie Tozier, and you're fifteen, and you're gunning for an Olympic medal in repression, and you don't know how to make your crush to pay attention to you...maybe you do something stupid like get a poison ivy rash. Twice.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 17
Kudos: 207





	Terrible Sting and Terrible Storm

**Author's Note:**

> (The self-harm tag is Richie giving himself a rash on purpose; I tagged it as that just to be safe).
> 
> This was supposed to be a crack fic but then feelings broke down my door and here we are.
> 
> This is my first fic for this fandom. I arrived late, got swept up in the madness of rebuilding my childhood traumas into something beautiful through the medium of this wonderful group of babies who are stuck rather tragically in a horror film or debatable quality, and now I present to you my offering of words.
> 
> Please treat them kindly.

The first time Richie Tozier touched poison ivy, it was an accident.

He was trampling through the undergrowth on the way to the clubhouse with Bill, Ben, Stan and Eddie on his heels. It was a warm Spring Saturday, the sun was high in the sky, and Richie was—

“–being an asshole, Trashmouth.” Eddie crossed his hands over his chest. “If you’re looking for your dignity in those bushes, you’re not gonna fucking find it.”

Richie grinned at the sharp bite of the words. It was a relatively new development, Eddie talking to him like this. Sure, he’d always been ready to snark back, but lately it seemed like the taller Richie got—the more his bones rearranged themselves, and the sweatier his skin became—the meaner Eddie grew.

Richie loved it. Mostly.

“Maybe so, my good man,” Richie-as-the-British-Guy said, puffing out his chest. “But I’ve found something better.” He stepped back further into the embrace of the bush— _fuck, there’s a joke there somewhere—_ and pointed to his left at a visible strip of worn pink fabric that might once have been a handkerchief. “Is that your mom’s bra?”

Eddie rolled his eyes, opening his mouth to shoot something back. Richie was practically holding his breath for it, his skin was itching for the barb.

“Woah, hey, Rich—” Stan started. “—I think that’s—”

There was a sound next to Richie’s left foot. It was just a soft crunch, and if Richie had been a different kid (perhaps a kid who hadn’t seen the things he’d seen two summers ago), then he might have been calm enough to notice the small lizard dart away from under a leaf, and he might not have sworn and stumbled and crashed violently backwards through the undergrowth.

His back hit the ground with an _oof,_ and he was left blinking up at the sunlight streaming through the treetops through the lenses of his askew glasses.

“Richie!” 

That had to be Eddie. None of the other losers had managed to master that amount of volume; Eddie had the market cornered on decibels. 

Richie laughed deliriously. “I fell.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Eddie said, voice closer.

Richie lifted his head up to see the boys crowding around the Richie-sized hole in the bushes that he’d just made. 

_God, it’s gonna be so funny when I think of this joke,_ Richie thought. 

Then he noticed the hesitation on his friend’s faces, Stan’s arm pressed against Eddie’s chest like his mom did to him in the passenger seat every time she so much as nudged the break.

“A-a-are you ok-kay, Richie?” Bill asked.

“Did you hit your head?” Ben added.

Richie struggled to his up. “No,” he said slowly. “What’s wrong, guys?” 

Eddie bit his lip, looking like he was about to explode. 

Stan was the one to pull the pin out of the Eddie grenade. “That’s poison ivy, genius.”

Richie yelped, jumping to his feet. 

Eddie ducked under Stan’s arm, reaching for Richie as he leapt out of the bush with all the might of his too-long legs. 

“I can’t fucking believe you. You got it all over your arms, do you know what that’s gonna do to you?” Eddie ranted as he fisted his hands in the front of Richie’s red-and-yellow striped shirt and marched them back towards their bikes.

“Rash?” guessed Bill. 

Eddie ignored him. “Dermatitis, that’s what. Caused by the… the Stanley Uris-ol in the leaves or whatever the fuck.”

“Hey!” Stan said.

“It’s urushiol, actually,” Ben offered. “It causes blisters.”

Richie winced, looking down at the skin of his arms. They looked fine, but he was starting to feel a tingle making its way up from his wrists.

Eddie let go of the front of his shirt to gesture wildly towards Ben, a vindicated look on his face.  
  
Richie glanced around at his friends. Any panic he might have been feeling vanished the moment he saw the various states of distress they were in. Even Stan looked worried for him.

“So, I guess we have to amputate, then,” Richie sighed, dropping his shoulders. “Ben, get the knife.”  
  
His joke did the trick. Stan rolled his eyes, but there was a smile on his angel-face; always a win in Richie’s books. Bill looked horrified, then he snorted and nudged Ben. Ben put his hands on his hips, struggling to hide a grin.

Only Eddie was left unmoved. 

“Real funny, dipshit. Get on the bike, we’re going to your house.”

Richie sent him a questioning look, arms raised away from the abrasive fabric of his shirt. They were really started to burn.

Eddie whistled and jerked his head towards their bikes impatiently. “Do I look like I have oatmeal in my fanny pack? Come on.”

He marched forwards. Richie took a moment to watch as he flung himself onto the seat of his bike with a manic sort of grace, making his already short-shorts ride further up his thighs (not that Richie was looking at his thighs).  
  
Then, Richie turned to Bill, Stan and Ben.  
  
“Oatmeal?” he asked helplessly. He hissed under his breath, gritting his teeth against the overwhelming urge to scratch his skin off. 

The boys all shrugged at him.

“Richie, I’ll fucking carry you back, I swear to god.”  
  
Richie sent him a dazzling smile, pulling his bike off the ground and swinging onto the seat with much less grace than Eddie. “You gonna throw me over your muscly shoulder like a blushing damsel on the front cover of one of those books you think we don’t know you read?” 

Eddie reacted strangely to that. He ducked his head, an angry blush blooming up his neck, then kicked off and sped away with nothing but a, “Beep beep, Richie,” sent over his perfectly un-muscled shoulders.

On its own, Richie might have been proud of getting a reaction like that out of him. But as it was, he’d been talking out of his ass and Eddie didn’t seem to realise that. 

Stan and Bill both took off after Eddie, leaving Ben to smile patiently at Richie and gesture for him to go first for once. You know, once he got his act together. 

Richie smiled at him—a special Ben smile, one a little gentler than anyone else would get—and sped off down the path.

He stood on the pedals as the wheels raced below him, leaves crunching and wind rushing up his blotchy-red arms. “Kapsbrak!” he yelled, delighted. “D’you actually read those?” 

Eddie lifted his finger in an obscene gesture.

Richie gasped in mock offense. “How dare you, young man!” 

The wind carried Eddie’s laughter back towards him.

  
  


* * *

  
  


The five of them could barely fit in Richie’s bathroom, but that didn’t stop them.

Eddie was practically foaming at the mouth, talking a mile a minute as he ran the sink full of hot water and started dumping the sad remnants of the Tozier Family’s Oatmeal Jar in it.

“—really all you have? What if there’s a hurricane or something, you need stores—” he was saying. Richie was zoning out, eyes caught on the hypnotical stirring Bill was doing. He hadn’t been asked to fetch a spoon and help out, but he’d done it anyway.

“What town are _you_ living in?” Stan asked from his perch on the toilet. His butt was dangerously close to the flush buttons. His feet were tap-tap-tapping on the plastic of the seat cover.

Richie really, really, _really_ wanted to scratch him arms.

“I think we’ve got some oats at home,” Ben offered. “I can go get them?”  
  
“Avast, ye scurvy mongrel!” Richie cried, throwing his throbbing arms through the air.

“...Is that a yes?”

Eddie paused his passionate tirade long enough to let a small giggle escape. Richie stared at him.

“I t-think so,” Bill said, stopping his stirring. The small chunks of oatmeal were probably as mixed in as they could be; the sink was still mostly water. “C’mon, I’ll go w-w-with you.”

The two turned to leave the bathroom.

“Make sure it’s none of that shit with raisins mixed in!” Eddie said. “And—”  
  
Stan hopped off the toilet, cutting Eddie off mid-sentence. “I think I’ll go too,” he said. 

Richie bade them goodbye, pulling as funny a face as he could around a pained grimace.

Only Bill laughed.

The bathroom door closed, leaving Richie alone with his too-long arms and his five-foot-something of Eddie Kapsbrak.

“I couldn’t have fallen in poison ivy before my growth spurt hit, huh?” Rich said a few minutes later, awkwardly trying to make conversation. It was mostly to distract himself from Eddie’s hands as they worked gently on his forearms, submerging them fully in the water. “Less skin to fuck up.”

Eddie didn’t look up. “Oh, was that a growth spurt?” he asked. His fingers smoothed up the soft inside of Richie’s left arm, smearing the puffed-up oatmeal that had drifted to the bottom of the sink along his skin. “I thought you just rolled around in nuclear waste every weekend.”

Richie shivered. “Ha,” he replied. His brain was too foggy to think of anything else.

Eddie sent him a concerned look. “Rich? You alright?” 

He stepped closer, eyes scanning over Richie’s face—it was pale, he could see it in the reflection of the bathroom mirror over Eddie’s shoulder, and his eyes were even wider than his normal giant saucers. 

“Uh,” Richie tried. He cleared his throat, ducking his head down. Maybe his feet had the answers. “Sure.” He lifted his arms in the sink just enough to draw Eddie’s attention back to them. “How we looking, Doctor K?” 

Eddie didn’t tell him to shut up like Richie was expecting. He just peered at Richie’s arms in the water, poking experimentally at a few of the redder patches of skin. “No blisters yet, which is good. You’ll be fucking lucky if you _just_ get a rash.” 

Richie hummed. He twisted his torso so he could use his shoulder to push his glasses up his nose, with limited success.

Eddie watched him struggle. His hands were closed around Richie’s wrists in the water, and Richie realized that the persistent itch had faded to the background. It was hard to concentrate on anything except for the feeling of Eddie’s middle finger and thumb meeting over his pulse point. And also trying to push his fucking glasses up his nose.

“Jesus, Richie,” Eddie burst. Before Richie could reply, Eddie was reached up with his left hand to push Richie’s glasses back into place.

Richie blinked at him. A drop of oatmeal-water landed on his cheek from Eddie’s still wet hand.

Eddie giggled. 

“Hey!” Richie complained. “Watch the money maker, huh?” 

Eddie tried to wipe the drop away with his thumb, but only succeeded in smearing more oatmeal water into Richie’s skin.

The bathroom door burst open and Stan, Bill and Ben tumbled in.

“We did it!” Ben said, panting as he held up a jar full of oatmeal.

“For me?” Richie asked, batting his eyelashes. “You shouldn’t have, you _know_ how prone I am to the vapors.”  
  
His Southern Bell cracked Bill up, as usual, and Stan rolled his eyes and hopped back onto his toilet perch.

Ben started pouring the oatmeal into the sink under Eddie’s strict instructions.  
  
Stan pulled a piece of toilet paper off the roll and handed it to Bill, nodding towards Richie’s cheek.

Richie poked his tongue out at Bill as he wiped the water-oatmeal-Eddie’s-touch away.  
  
“W-what were you guys d-d-doing?” he asked, a teasing glint in his eye.

“Nothing!” Eddie squeaked. 

Richie kept his mouth shut.

For once.

  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


Two weeks later, and Richie was back in the woods near the clubhouse.

He was by himself this time.

He was standing, back rigid, hand on the now-healed skin of his arm, and he was staring at three innocent leaves. They were bouncing a little in the wind.

Maybe Richie was going insane, but they looked kind of cute.

And he probably was, at that, to be standing here and considering this.

But the thing was…

As unpleasant as the rash had been, the intoxicating drug of Eddie’s attention was enough to make up for it tenfold.

He’d just been so attentive, even when it was clear that the rash was healing on its own. He’d dragged Richie to the pharmacy on day two and bullied him into using his pocket money to buy a special cream for his arms (which his parents had happily paid him back for that night, thank God). After that, Eddie had carried it around in his fanny pack. Every afternoon, like clockwork, he’d pull Richie aside and roll his sleeves up. The two minutes it took for Eddie to smear the cream up his arms were the best two minutes of his day, without fail.

But now the rash was gone, and everything was back to normal.

Eddie’s words still had that acidic bite, and he never initiated contact between them. It wasn’t like when they were younger. Richie could tell the difference now that he’d had Eddie dote after him the way he used to. Sure, he’d always rolled his eyes and told him to shut up when he went too far, but most of the time he’d just been...there, right beside him with the other boys, listening to him and smiling at him and actually _talking_ to him like he _liked_ him.

When Richie knelt down and pressed his left hand to the poison ivy before him, it seemed like a small price to pay to feel like Eddie Kapsbrak cared about him.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


“Jesus, Richie, _again?”_ Eddie yelled, tugging Richie’s hand up to his face.

Bill and Stan were laughing at him in the background somewhere. Ben wasn’t paying attention, plugged in with Beverly to the new walkman his parents bought him for his birthday. The soft sound of muffled disco tunes (old, but catchy) were a lovely contrast to the screeching Eddie was doing.

And the concerned look on Mike’s face.

“—so fucking clumsy, what’s the point of growing limbs that long if you don’t know how to use them?” Eddie asked. He was kneeling in the hammock opposite Richie, knees in between Richie’s gangly legs. His ranting was causing it to sway. Or maybe that was just Richie’s head swimming. 

“I know how to use _one_ of them,” Richie sneered, pointing to his crotch and bucking his hips suggestively.

“Dude, you’re disgusting,” Eddie dismissed. He poked at one of the blisters that was starting to form on the inside of his wrist. Richie winced and ripped his hand back.

This time definitely hurt worse than last time. Good thing that Richie never claimed to be anything other than an idiot.

“I left the cream in my second fanny pack,” Eddie said, awkwardly squirming his way out of the hammock.

Richie watched him struggle.

“Oi, fish eyes!” Beverly called, pulling the headphone away from her ear and holding up a small rubber ball. “Catch!”

Richie held up his middle finger, and the ball bounced off the back of his hand. Beverly burst into laughter, and Stan, Bill, Ben and Mike were quick to follow. Richie soaked up the laughter, eyes caught on a pair of short shorts, knee-high sports socks and bright trainers (and maybe also the legs they were attached to) as they disappeared up the ladder.

  
  
  


* * *

A little while later, after most of the other losers had disappeared back to their respective houses, Mike fell into step beside Richie on his way home.

Richie looked up at him from where he’d been playing with the bandage now wrapped around his hand and poked his tongue out in greeting.

Mike snorted, then nodded to Richie’s hand.

“I’ve had a few run-ins with poison ivy,” he started. Richie was about to interrupt with an inappropriate joke, but Mike laid a steady hand on his shoulder. “The rash gets worse every time, you get me?”  
  
Richie paused and turned towards him with a frown.

Mike looked between his eyes. Richie’s skin started to crawl with the uncomfortable sensation of being seen.

“It’s not worth it,” Mike said.

“Mikey,” Richie grinned, “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”  
  
Mike let it go.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


“What were you trying to do, anyway?” Eddie asked.

They were sitting on the bleachers in the gym watching the rest of their class run around and try to kill each other with balls.

It was a barbaric practice that some might call ‘dodgeball’.

Richie was excused on account of the two-day-old blisters on his hand, and Eddie had a pile about a mile high of scrap pieces of paper saying ‘ _don’t you dare damage my son’_ courtesy of Mrs K.

He hadn’t been using them all year. His foot was tapping against the ground as he watched Bill get slammed in the stomach by little Lettie Smith.

“Huh?”  
  
Eddie started chewing his thumbnail. “Your hand, genius,” he said, slightly muffled.

Richie looked down at his hand. It wasn’t wrapped up anymore—he’d felt the need to show off the grisly rash since Mr. Phillips had been unmoved by his plight—and it stared up at him with judgement.

“I was fighting off ten horny hippie chicks,” Richie started, gearing up for a very impressive load of bullshit. “And their bushes were all _covered_ in—”

Eddie huffed. “Fine, you don’t have to tell me.”

His leg was still bouncing.

Richie reached across and pressed the back of his hand to Eddie’s bare knee. Eddie stared at it, but he didn’t stop bouncing.

“And _you_ don’t have to sit here with me, wise guy.”

Eddie shrugged. Richie’s hand started to slip off his knee—understandable, when you consider the force of Eddie’s bounces and how little Richie was trying to keep it there—but Eddie grabbed his wrist before it could fall.

Then he looked up nervously at the dodgeball thunderdome before them, seemingly realizing where and who he was.

He shoved Richie’s hand back into his lap.

Richie hissed as the coarse denim of his shorts met his sensitive skin.

Eddie crowded close immediately. “Shit, you alright?” he asked.

Richie blinked. Eddie’s wide brown eyes blinked back.

“Why, do you care?” Richie asked. Maybe it was the background violence, or maybe it was the fact that Richie speed-counted about fifteen more freckles on Eddie’s cheeks than were there last time he’d been this close to him. Either way, his hackles were rising.

Eddie reared back like he’d been slapped. 

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean, asshole?” he snapped. 

At least his leg had stopped bouncing.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Richie sneered, pushing his glasses up his nose.”Maybe just that you only seem to like me these days when I’m covered in rashes.” He waved his hand in Eddie’s face to prove his point, and Eddie batted it away impatiently.

“So I’m just supposed to ignore you when you’re in pain, is that it?” he asked, hurt flashing across his face.

“No,” Richie said, feeling wrongfooted. “That’s not—”

“Mr. Phillips!” Eddie called, leaping to his feet.

Mr. Phillips turned to him with a bored expression on his wrinkled face. “Yes?” he drawled.

“I think I’m feeling well enough to play.” Eddie marched over to the line of balls on the linoleum and scooped one up.

Richie watched him leave with a frown.

He spent the rest of gym class waiting for Mr. Phillips to turn his back for long enough to sneak out and have a smoke behind the shed (and trying not to watch Eddie’s legs as he sprinted around on the court, dodging this way and that, or the sure grip of his hands on the ball, or the angry scowl on his face).

  
  


* * *

  
  


“Wouldn’t it have been easier to just, I don’t know…” Bev waved her hand vaguely, and Richie ducked out of the way of her lit cigarette. “Kiss him?”  
  
Richie choked.

Beverly laughed in his face. 

“Jesus,” Richie coughed. “You’re a son of a bitch, you know that, right?”

Beverly shrugged. “Yep. And you’re certifiable.”

Richie wrestled her cigarette away from her and took a drag while she pouted at him. “Maybe so,” he acknowledged. “But you’re wrong about something.”

Bev rolled her eyes. “And what’s that?” she drawled, clearly expecting him to deny wanting to kiss Eddie.

Richie leaned back against the brick wall they were loitering behind (vagabonds, the both of them—nevermind their good grades). 

“There’s _no_ way kissing him would be easier than this.” He held his almost-healed palm up to her face, and she pushed it away.

“Why not?” she demanded. 

“How’s a punch to the face sound, Bevs?” Richie shot back. He blew out the last of the smoke and dropped the butt to the dirt below. “How ‘bout being found floating down the river, and _not_ because it’s the right time of year for a dip. Think I’ll still look good black-and-blue?” He grinned at her and batted his eyelashes.  
  
Beverly ground the cigarette beneath the heel of her scuffed-up boot. “So, what? You’re just gonna keep accidentally falling into poison ivy for the rest of school?”

He should have known that the threat of violence wasn’t going to convince Beverly of anything.

“Come on, Bev.” Richie pushed his glasses up his face, then crossed his arms. The sleeves of his orange-and-green patterned overshirt pinched at his arms. Richie was getting real sick of growing out of all his favorite clothes. “I clearly haven’t thought that far ahead.”

Beverly smiled at him, then. It was a sharp sort of smile: a little bit fond, a little bit amused, a little bit happy. Like she thought he was gonna be alright, or some trash like that.

“You’re so beautiful, Beverly Marsh,” Richie swooned.

She laughed and pushed him back towards the door. “I’ll tell my boyfriends you said that.”

Richie grinned and let himself be pushed. “Go ahead. They’re beautiful, too.”

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Two days later, and Richie was innocently wiping the floor with some schmuck’s high score on Street Fighter when Mike and Stan appeared on either side of him.

“Check it out, guys,” Richie greeted. The little blonde man on the screen jumped and kicked and jumped again. “The Master’s back in action. Can you believe some little twerp though he could take over the number one spot just because I was mortally injured?”  
  
“No,” Mike said, looking like he could care less. 

“Richie,” Stan said, sharing a look with Mike, “how, um. How you doing, dude?”  
  
Richie made a face at him—the word ‘dude’ sounded strange on Stanley’s lips—then immediately turned back to his game. “What?”

Mike laid a warm, soothing hand on Richie’s shoulder. Mike’s hands were always warm; it was one of those things that Richie noticed and then pretended he didn’t.

(Like how golden Stan’s hair looked in the sun, or how nice the colour of Ben’s eyes were, or the shape of Bill’s neck when he stretched, or Eddie’s… everything).

“We’ve got something to ask you,” Mike said.

Richie frowned. He lost half his health to a well-placed blow. 

Stan cleared his throat and leaned forwards. “Are you going to rub poison ivy all over your delicate, porcelain skin again?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

Richie let the question flow through one ear and out the other until his opponent was lying dead on the ground and his character was bouncing on the victory screen.

Then, he turned to Stan. “Huh?”

Stan gave him a flat look.

Mike lifted his hand off Richie’s shoulder so he could poke him in the ribs. “How about I make it a statement instead: don’t rub poison ivy over your delicate porcelain skin again.”

Stan nodded, then pulled on a supportive expression. “Bill offered to write Eddie a nice poem for you instead. And Ben said he’d build him a birdhouse or something, but then I said I wanted that instead. And Beverly said she’d lock him in a shed for you.”  
  
“Is any of that helpful?” Mike asked, sounding like he knew the answer would be an emphatic, _no._

“So, you guys really just talk about me behind my back, huh?” Richie asked. “You’re all terrible friends.”  
  
He was joking, but Stan and Mike looked chastened. (Probably because Richie wasn’t actually joking, when it came down to it).

“Come on, man. We just don’t want you to fuck your hands up with a rash every two weeks.”

Richie pushed himself away from the Street Fighter game, the high score screen now reading a proud ‘RIC’ in the top spot.

There were a few other kids in the arcade, so Richie didn’t kick up a fuss like he wanted to. “Okay, whatever,” he said, stalking towards the door.

Stan jogged to catch up with him, hand caught on Mike’s arm to drag him along. “So?” he pressed. “Is it actually true?”

The warm outside air hit Richie’s skin in a wave. “Is what true?”

“That you gave yourself a rash because you like Eddie,” Stan answered.

“Lower your voice, dude. Fuck,” Richie hissed, looking around.

Mike sighed. “Richie, we’ll protect you,” he said, like it was a given. “We protect each other.”

Stan nodded.

The three of them looked at each other in silence. Physically, they were standing on the sidewalk on a quiet Saturday afternoon. There were cars driving past and birds chirping and clouds passing over the sun.

But mentally, they were standing in a dark basement facing down the worst monster they would ever meet in their entire lives.

Maybe that was why Richie finally admitted; “Yeah. I do like him.”

  
  
  


* * *

  
  


Mrs. Kapsbrak looked tired when she opened the door.

“Oh,” she said, distaste showing on her face. “It’s you.”  
  
Richie smiled sharply.  
  
She looked him up and down. Richie was sure that she was about to turn him away with a sweetly-cutting remark, but then she sighed.

“Eddie-bear,” she called over her shoulder. “You’ve got a friend here to see you.”  
  
Richie shuffled on his feet at the answering silence.

Mrs. Kapsbrak turned back to Richie. “He’s probably up in his room listening to one of his _tapes,”_ she said, practically spitting out the last word.

Richie had given him some of those tapes—compilations of pop songs he thought Eddie would like, mostly. It sent a shiver of pride to know that Eddie’s mum didn’t approve.

“I’ll just go up, then,” Richie said, slipping around her and into the house before she could tell him no.

He took the stairs two at a time, then knocked in a jaunty rhythm on Eddie’s door.

He was bouncing on his feet and his hands were shaking.

Eddie opened the door with a surprised expression on his face. He was in the middle of pulling his headphones down around his neck, hair all messed up and slightly out of breath.

“Richie?” His mouth tilted up into a smile.

Richie squinted at him. “You got someone in there, Eds?” he asked, trying to peer over Eddie’s head. His room was as empty as he’d expected it to be. “Someone’s got you panting, huh?” He waggled his eyebrows.

Eddie scowled at him, pushing the door open all the way. “No, asshole. I was dancing.”  
  
He froze after his admission, an embarrassed blush blooming on his cheeks.

“Cute,” Richie said. The thought of Eddie dancing alone in his room to the Tears for Fears song Richie could hear still playing from Eddie’s headphones, all soft and faded, was enough to make him want to jump headfirst off a cliff, so he shoved it away. “I came to give this back to you.”

Eddie scrambled to catch the rolled up bandage that Richie tossed at his chest.

“Hey,” Eddie said. “What–oh. Ew, god,” Eddie visibly went through the five stages of grief as he scrambled back into his room, holding the bandages as far away from him as he could.

Richie tried not to be offended. He followed Eddie further into the room, and said, “I washed them, fuckwit. I’m not that gross,” as he closed the door behind him.

Eddie’s expression smoothed. “Oh, well. Thanks, I guess.” He frowned at the bandages, then turned to place them on his desk.

Richie took the opportunity to creep closer to him.  
  
Eddie turned back to him and startled. Then he rolled his eyes at himself, as if Richie’s intention was to scare him (when really he’d just wanted to get closer without having to let Eddie see him coming).

“I’m, um. Not going to need them anymore,” Richie started. He already wanted to wipe his hands on his pants to wipe the sweat off them, which wasn’t a promising sign. “Because I’ve been told to find more healthy ways to express my feelings than getting a poison ivy rash like a dumbshit.”  
  
Well, basically.

Eddie looked at him like he was insane. “What?” 

_Last chance to chicken out, Trashmouth._

Richie gulped.

“I’m sorry about what I said the other day in gym class,” he continued.

Eddie tried to laugh, but it came out uncomfortably strangled. “Was that an apology from Richie Tozier?” he said, leaning backwards into the desk. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Would you just shut up for a second? I’m struggling with sincerity over here.”  
  
Eddie closed his mouth.

Richie sighed sharply. _Great going, genius,_ he thought, stepped back and running his hand through his curls. _Why don’t you yell at him some more, that’ll get you laid._

“Edwardo—”

“Not my fucking name.”

“—I have to tell you something important.”

Eddie raised his eyebrows.

Richie just stared at him. Head empty.

“Well?” Eddie prompted, shuffling into Richie’s space. He waved a hand in front of his face. “Earth to Trashmouth. What is it? What’s so important, huh?” 

For all the times Richie had known he was repressing things—kicking certain thoughts away, shoving them underneath the carpet of his mind, locking them in an iron chest to gather dust—it had never occurred to him what a problem that habit might cause, the day he tried to summon a single one of them.

It was like his secret desires were all standing there watching him struggle to produce a coherent thought with matching expressions of contempt. 

Richie closed his mouth. He prayed for the ground to swallow him whole. 

_Here lies Richie Tozier,_ his headstone would read. _He dug his own grave with rash-covered hands and a shovel made from denial._

Eddie gestured for him to get on with it. His foot was tapping soundlessly against the beige rug on the floor of his room. He was wearing fuzzy blue socks.

It was the socks, oddly enough, that made Richie realize that perhaps he didn’t have to wait for the words to come after all.

All he had to do—and he was thinking this as he did it, so he couldn’t back down once the idea was fully formed—was reach his hands up, place them on Eddie’s soft cheeks, tilt his head up slightly, and press their lips together.

Eddie exhaled against him, a surprised little huff of air. Richie squeezed his eyes shut. 

It wasn’t a great first kiss. They were both standing so stiffly, like if they dared to move then reality would collapse. Richie’s lips were chapped from stress-chewing them all day. Eddie wasn’t even breathing.

The seconds stretched on, and Richie started to pull away.

But Eddie made a desperate noise and looped his arms around Richie’s neck to keep him in place. He leaned up on his toes and he did something utterly universe-breaking; he _kissed back._

And then he was gone.

Richie staggered backwards, almost tripping over his feet.

Eddie was watching him with an unreadable expression. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I’ll just—I’m–” Richie choked. “Bye.”  
  
He was out of the room before Eddie could respond. He thundered down the stairs and raced out of the door, ignoring Mrs. K’s objections.

He didn’t stop running until he was struggling to breathe.

* * *

  
  


The next day—a Sunday—was spent lying on Bill Denbrough’s bed, listening to all of his most maudlin records while the man himself sat at his desk and wrote.

Every so often he’d ask a question—something about a word choice, or the flow of a sentence—and Richie would grunt an answer, and Bill would nod and turn back to his work.

He’d figured out already that asking Richie what was wrong would get him nowhere. 

His company was all Richie needed. By the time the sun was starting to set, Richie was beginning to feel like perhaps his life wasn’t over.

“Are you staying for dinner, dear?” Bill’s mom asked kindly from the doorway.

Richie sat up slowly. He blinked at her, then looked at Bill.

“I think I’d best be going home, thank you,” he said after Bill made no move to answer for him.

She looked surprised—perhaps because Richie had been Bill’s friend for long enough that she’d gotten to know his _actual_ personality instead of the fake one he used around adults. And the boy Richie really was wasn’t exactly polite.

“Alright.” She lingered for a moment, and Richie held his breath. Bill would accept silence as an answer to, _are you alright?,_ but he doubted that she would.

But then just smiled at him and a moment later she was gone.

Richie looked over at Bill in the quiet that followed.

“Hey, Big Bill?” 

“Hm?”

Richie stood and walked over to Bill’s desk. He rested his elbows on the back of Bill’s chair, then rested his chin on Bill’s head. Bill allowed it for reasons Richie couldn’t fathom.

“Whatcha writing?”  
  
Bill’s pencil paused on the page. Richie was close enough to read the words if he wanted to, but he didn’t.

“A story,” Bill answered. “It’s not turning out like I w-want, though.” He sounded resigned.

Richie snorted humorlessly. “Do they ever?” And then, because that thought was a little too close to philosophical for his tastes, he added. “Am I in it?” whilst poking Bill’s shoulder.

Bill nodded. “Y-y-your name is Reginald and you’re a hundred years old.”  
  
“Hot. How many abs do I have?”

“Ten.”

“That’s so insulting, Bill. I can’t fucking believe you. Give me at least twelve or I’ll never talk to you again.”

Bill made a show of flicking back in his journal, crossing out a random sentence, then writing, _Reginald had twenty abs_ in block letters.

Richie clapped him on the shoulder, then walked backwards towards the door.

“Much better, dude. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”  
  
Bill twisted in his chair, a frown taking over the amusement on his face. “Richie?”  
  
Richie paused halfway out the door. “Billiam,” he deadpanned.

Bill’s mouth twisted like he was trying not to laugh. “You’d tell me if you w-w-were in t-trouble again, right?”

 _Trouble,_ Richie mused. _Does he mean killer clowns, homicidal bullies, or the fact that I’m a raging f–_

“Yeah, Bill. Sure.”

Bill looked like he didn’t believe him.

He shouldn’t. 

  
  
  


* * *

Richie kept his head down in school that week. He sat in the corner in class, he met Bev out the back of the school for a cigarette every couple of days, and he didn’t raise his hand to answer questions wrong on purpose just to make his friends laugh. During lunch he was extra loud and extra annoying to make up for it, but there was always at least two people between himself and Eddie.

Not that any of it stopped Eddie from staring at him. Whenever they were in a room together, Eddie was watching him with a look on his face that Richie didn’t recognize. Richie could feel his eyes on him like a physical thing, and it made him feel itchy. Naked. Guilty.

So he ignored it.

Eddie tried to talk to him a few times, a rushed out, “Richie! Wait up!” while he sped down the hallway, or a tug on his sleeve while they were walking to gym with Bill and Stan, and it took all of Richie’s strength to not answer every damn time.

There was one thing worse than a bully like Henry Bowers kicking his teeth in for looking at a boy with _homosexual intent,_ and that was Eddie Fucking Kapsbrak letting him down gently.

By the end of the week, he almost missed the poison ivy rash. At least that was real, and he knew what to do with it, and he knew where it came from.

He didn’t tell Stan and Mike _I told you so,_ because then he’d have to talk to them about it.  
  
And he didn’t tell Beverly _your advice fucking sucks,_ because he could tell from the sympathy in her eyes and the way she let him have more than half of her cigarette stash that she knew that already.

  
  
  


* * *

Richie woke up on Saturday morning after a fragmented dream starring soft sheets, warm touches, and a certain brown-eyed boy.

“This is ridiculous,” Richie told himself sternly. He stared up at the chips in the paint on his ceiling. “Get a fucking hold of yourself.”  
  
But it didn’t help.

Once you pop a mentos into a coke, Richie thought as he slumped downstairs, it was damn near impossible to get all the coke back in the bottle.

Or something like that.

He yawned and pulled open the fridge. The house was quiet this morning—no doubt he’d slept long enough to miss his parents heading off to run their usual Saturday morning errands.

He wiped at the sleep in his eyes as he squinted at the blurry objects on the shelves. He frowned, patting himself down for his glasses. His hand found them on top of his head, nestled amongst the jungle his hair had become. With that mystery solved, he set about making himself blurry cereal.

The door decided to interrupt him while he was in the middle of pouring milk over his lucky charms. Specifically, someone on the other side of the door who was knocking on it.

Richie sighed. He finished pouring, then stared down at his cereal and contemplated ignoring whoever it was at the door.

Then the knocking started up again, more urgently this time.

“Coming!” Richie called, then added, “Jesus, calm down,” under his breath.

In hindsight, it really should have occurred to him that only Eddie Kapsbrak could manage to make a knock sound so angry.

He was standing on the Tozier family welcome mat. His torso was a smudge of pink, his hips and thighs a smudge of red, his calves a smudge of white, and there was something green poking out from behind his back.

Richie squinted at him, then scrambled to pull his glasses down onto his face. “Eds?” 

Eddie scowled at him. “No, asshole, it’s Pamela Anderson. Are you gonna let me in or not?”  
  
“Anything for you, Pam,” Richie said deliriously. He stepped aside and Eddie pushed passed him into the hallway.

Richie closed the door. Or at least he assumed he did, since he heard it click shut. He was a little busy trying to wrestle his mostly-asleep brain into reconciling the reality of Eddie Kapsbrak standing in his house with a bouquet of wildflowers in his hands. 

Eddie followed his gaze down to the flowers, then thrust them forwards. “These are for you,” he spat, like it was an accusation.

Richie cleared his throat. “I’ll get a vase?”

Eddie shrugged. There was something manic about him, an unharnessed energy that seemed to leak out of his every movement.  
  
Richie edged around him then ducked into the kitchen. Eddie stomped after him.

Richie turned his back to pull a vase from the top shelf of the cupboard. He watched as the tap filled it with water and struggled to come up with an explanation for the strange turn his Saturday morning had taken.

“So I’ve been talking to the guys,” Eddie said. “And Bev.”

Richie’s hands started shaking, the water in the vase sloshing around until he dumped it on the bench next to his now-soggy cereal. 

Eddie stood on the other side of the counter. His shirt was wrinkling where his stomach was pressed against it. 

“Oh, yeah?” Richie asked. “Don’t believe anything they tell you, Eds. They’re a bunch of assholes.”

He looked away from Eddie’s face—there were a few new freckles on his nose, and Richie didn’t really need that right now—and instead stared at the flowers in Eddie’s hands. 

He frowned at them. The daisies he recognized, of course, but there was something distantly familiar about the bunches of small, whitish-with-orange-centres ones. 

“Maybe, but I figured they might at least know what the fuck was going on with you,” Eddie shot back.

This was Richie’s cue to explain himself. He’d come up with something last night—something about an elaborate prank he was playing, _Eddie, of course I don’t like you like that, I can’t believe you fell for it, you should’ve seen your face_ —but. Those flowers looked so familiar.

“And Stan mentioned something–”  
  
“Eddie,” Richie interrupted. He rounded the table frantically and grabbed Eddie’s wrists, fingers scrambling for purchase over the bulky watch on Eddie’s left hand. “Eddie, that’s poison ivy!”

Eddie scoffed. “Of course it’s fucking poison ivy.”

“ _Of course—_ what the fuck, Eddie! Put it down, what are you doing–” Richie snatched the vase and tried to navigate the ends of the stalks into it.

Eddie made a frustrated noise, then let go of the bouquet. Most of the flowers fell into the vase, but a few floated down to the ground. 

“I’m _trying_ to make a grand romantic gesture, what the fuck does it look like I’m doing? God, can you shut up for once?” 

Richie froze. 

Eddie’s jaw ticked. He made to cross his arms across his chest, then winced. Richie’s eyes flicked down to his palms—which were starting to get red and splotchy—then down to the poison ivy bouquet in his own hands—safely separated from his skin by a layer of frosted glass and water—then up to Eddie’s eyes. 

“Are you serious?” he asked, hushed and urgent.

Eddie didn’t answer him. “Did you really give yourself a poison ivy rash because you like me?” 

Richie felt his cheeks color. He turned, placed the vase on the table, and lied really badly. “No.”

“Then I guess you also didn’t jump me in my bedroom last week? Huh?” he probed.

Richie said nothing and stared at the specks of dirt on Eddie’s stiff white socks.

“You know, the least you can do when you kiss a guy without any warning is to stick around afterwards.”  
  
Richie recognized something in Eddie’s voice that sounded suspiciously like teasing.

He looked up and sure enough there are a matching sparkle in Eddie’s eyes.

“I had a date with your mom to get to,” Richie said, on instinct.

“And how’d that go for you, dickwad?” Eddie shot back.

Richie grinned. Hope flickered to life in his chest like the click of a lighter. “Did you really bring me flowers?” he dared to ask.

Eddie shook his head. He took a deliberate step into Richie’s space, cornering him against the counter like Richie had cornered him against his desk last week. “No,” he said. “I brought you poison ivy.”  
  
Richie struggled to contain his grin. “You know you could’ve fucking died doing that, dude?”  
  
Eddie rolled his eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic. And don’t call me dude.”  
  
“Why not?” Richie challenged. 

“Because I’m about to kiss you and it’s weird.” 

Richie swore he could hear his heartbeat in his ears, thumping away like a drumbeat. His mouth fell open in surprise.

Eddie went to place his hands on Richie’s cheeks then winced again. He changed tactic and pressed the back of his fingers on Richie’s neck. His skin felt so soft--softer than it ever had before.

Richie slumped down to him just as Eddie was tilting himself up, and their lips met in the middle.

It was a much better second kiss than their first. Eddie was taking charge this time, and what he lacked in experience he made up for in enthusiasm.

Not that Richie had any experience, either. He wondered if it was supposed to feel like this—like his skin was tingling, like he wanted to laugh and moan at the same time, like he could float away on a breeze—and then he stopped having enough brainpower left to wonder about anything.

They needed to breathe at some point, so the kiss didn’t last forever. 

Eddie sucked in some air, and then tugged Richie down again, but Richie pushed him away with a gentle hand on his chest.

“Richie?” Eddie asked, hurt-anger-embarrassment flickering across his face.

“I want to do that again, like, _a lot,”_ Richie rushed out, “but you gotta let me take care of your hands first, Eds.”

Eddie looked at his palms like he’d forgotten he was even in pain.

“Shit, fuck,” he hissed, shaking them like he was trying to dry them. “Yeah, okay.”

“Okay.” Richie grabbed him by the elbow and steered him towards the stairs. 

When they reached the bottom, Richie swooped in. He’d picked Eddie up in an awkward bridal carry before he could even blink.

“What the fuck!” Eddie screeched, wriggling in his hold like a man possessed. “Put me down right the fuck now, you fucking asshole–”

Richie laughed, rushing up the stairs. “You’re heavier than you look, dude,” he panted.

The fight went out of Eddie. “I swear to God you’re a dead man,” he warned, slumping back into Richie’s chest sullenly.

“I’ll just come back as a zombie,” Richie answered. “Then you’ll never get rid of me.”  
  
Eddie looked suspiciously pleased by that.

Richie shouldered open the bathroom door and tumbled inside. He dropped Eddie onto the counter next to the sink before he could object.

“I could’ve walked,” Eddie complained.

Richie ignored him. He started rifling through the cabinet for the cream Eddie made him buy.

The bathroom filled with silence like a glass under a tap as Richie smoothed the cream over Eddie’s palms as gently as he could.

Richie swallowed a lump in his throat, mind working a mile a minute to come up with the perfect one liner to break it.

In the end, Eddie was the first to speak—he always was braver than Richie.

“Hey, Richie?” he asked, nudging Richie’s thigh with his foot.

“Hm?” Richie looked up from Eddie’s cream-covered hands.

Eddie’s eyes met his and skittered away nervously. Then, he set his shoulders and stared straight at him. “You do like me, right?” he said. At first Richie didn’t even register it a question; Eddie’s voice was hard-edged, dark in a way he almost never was.

Richie nodded. “Yeah, Eds. Course I do.”

Eddie wriggled forwards on the counter. Richie tried to back away, but Eddie hooked his ankles around him and wouldn’t budge. “No, asshole. I mean.” He huffed, frustrated. If the noise had come from someone he didn’t know so well, Richie would think he was in trouble. “Tell me how you feel about me. And don’t lie.”

It struck Richie as awfully unfair that he had to go first. He scrambled to come up with an answer; how was he supposed to even start, when he’d been trying not to think about that question since day one, minute one of their friendship.

“So, you know how in Gremlins—” Richie started.

Eddie elbowed him in the gut hard enough to make Richie swear and almost lose his grip on Eddie’s hands. Which would be bad, because that grip was probably the only thing stopping him from getting whacked. “No Gremlins metaphors either. Jeez.”

Richie closed his eyes and sighed. He tried to summon up the courage he felt a week ago, but it seemed so far away. What could have possibly driven him to–

Oh, right. His friends. And their unconditional love.

Richie opened his eyes. “I want to kiss you all the time,” he said, low and honest. “I think about you every day in ways that I know I shouldn’t. We’ve kind of been through hell together, don’t know if you noticed, but when I’m touching you…” he trailed off and smiled at the sight of his fingers wrapped around Eddie’s bony wrists. He could feel the pitter-patter of his heartbeat through the delicate skin and he was no expert, but it felt pretty damn fast. “I forget. I just feel like me again. A scrawny trashmouthed loser who’s got no bigger plans than to annoy the shit out of you every day.” He snorted, then looked back up at Eddie’s face.

Eddie opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Richie had gone and popped another mentos in the coke, so he couldn’t stop himself from continuing. “I carved our initials in the kissing bridge, did you know that?” 

Eddie’s eyes widened and he wheezed.

An instinctual part of Richie’s mind went, _shit, where’s his inhaler,_ but he pushed it aside impatiently.

“I just didn’t think that you would ever—” Richie cut himself off, not willing to finish the thought. It still felt too delicate to put into words.

“I do,” Eddie insisted quickly. “I do, Rich. I like you so much that I don’t know where to put it. And I’m sorry I’ve been kind of a piss-bucket to you lately, it’s not anything you’ve done. It’s me. It’s me, okay?”

“Hey, shh, it’s alright,” Richie said. He smiled a hopeful smile. “If you’ve been a pissbucket then I’ve just been adding to the piss. Just taking a big ol’ leak—”

“Shut up, you’re so disgusting,” Eddie shoved him away, but Richie couldn’t get very far still tangled up in Eddie’s legs. He wobbled on his feet. Eddie slung his arm around Richie’s neck to steady him, careful to keep his palm from touching anything. “I can’t believe I like you. There’s gotta be something wrong with me.”

Richie gulped. His heart fell to the floor. “Please don’t say that.”

Eddie frowned. The boyish grin on his face shifted into a frown. He didn’t try to take it back—they both knew he hadn’t really meant it, but that idea, _there’s something wrong with me,_ was a baseball bat right to Richie’s face.

Time was, Eddie might’ve felt the same.

But he’d had a long, hard two years to come to terms with the fact that there was absolutely fuckall wrong with him, and there never had been.

So Eddie didn’t take it back, but he did press forwards. His ribs lined up with Richie’s through their shirts. His nose nudged Richie’s nose. His breath smelled like mint—something to be said for good brushing habits—and this time when they kissed, their heartbeats stayed steady.

It ended when Richie placed his hand on Eddie’s waist a little too gently and Eddie giggled into his mouth.

“C’mon,” he said, shimmying off the counter and bouncing on his toes. “I wanna see where you carved our names. I really hope you actually did—that’s so fucking embarassing, Richie.”  
  
Richie scoffed. “Fuck off. I bet you wrote my name in the margins of all your notebooks. _Mrs Eddie Tozier,”_ he singsonged.

Eddie went red in the face. “God–no! What? No. Shut–shut up, you’re the worst.” He turned on his heel and raced down the stairs.

Richie blinked after him, then a massive, shit-eating grin spread across his face. “Wait, Eddie!” he laughed, chasing after him. “Did you actually do that? You legally have to tell me or it’s entrapment.”

“Screw you!” Eddie called. He was struggling to open the door without using his palms.

“Aw, I love you too, baby.” Richie crowded against him and pressed a sloppy kiss to his cheek while twisting the door handle.

Eddie shouldered him off and ducked out of the house.

Richie stayed back to grab the keys from the bowl and spared a passing thought to his abandoned Lucky Charms. 

_Oh well._

He was about follow Eddie out when the boy himself appeared back in the doorway. He only stayed long enough to look over his shoulder at the empty street and dart up to peck Richie’s cheek, then he was gone again.

Richie held his hand to the still-tingling spot, dazed.

“You coming or what?” Eddie asked, perched on his bike. One foot on the ground, one on the pedal, back of his hands on the handlebar to steer. This time when Richie stared at his thighs, he felt, for the very first time, that he was allowed to look.

“Last one there’s your mom’s sweaty underwear!” Richie yelled, racing for his bike and pushing off down the street in record time.

“Hey!” Eddie caught up with him in no time. The slope of the road made the wheels of their bikes spin faster than was probably wise. Richie was standing, wind billowing his open overshirt out behind him. The same wind was rushing through Eddie’s hair, mussing up his perfectly-coiffed do. “I take offense to that. My mom’s underwear is, like, super fucking clean.”

“Why do you know so much about it?” Richie jeered. 

Eddie laughed, loud and bright.

It didn’t matter what they were saying; they could have been talking about deep sea angler fish, or the Dewey Decimal System, or Ben’s new favourite boyband. It didn’t matter at all.  
  
No matter what it was, Richie knew he would still feel this free.

As long as Eddie was there with him. Feeling the same way.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. I'd love it if you left some kudos, or a comment to tell me what you thought. Lots of love xx


End file.
